Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Glorious Mysteries: The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin
I hear Our Lord giving sentence: “Come ye Blessed. Depart ye cursed.” I see the despair of those who are banished for ever from the company of Christ and His saints; how they depart weeping and wailing into everlasting fire. I see clearly how in losing God they have lost all. I share the transports of joy with which the saints behold the triumph of their Lord so long delayed. Yonder lay the city where He was mocked and tortured for them, the Mount where he was crucified for them. I see the dazzling beauty of so many glorified bodies; the delight of the saints in the agility, subtlety, brightness, that now belong to them. I hear the rejoicing, the congratulations on every side; the songs of exultation and praise as they mount into the heavens, higher and higher: “Alleluia. Salvation, and glory, and power is to our God. For true and just are His judgments. Alleluia. The Lord our God, the Almighty hath reigned. Let us be glad and rejoice and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come” (Apoc. 19).
The Eternal Gates open before them. They pass in with Jesus and Mary. Shall I be there? The Gates are shut. O God, on which side shall I be? The choice remains with me now. By every act of my life I am choosing my place for eternity.
O Mother of God and my Mother, pray for me now. Thy prayer on that Day would be too late. Whatever happens to me in this life, I must, I must secure my eternity in the next with Thy Divine Son and with thee. Pray for me that I may not be lost in the dreadful Judgment. Let all things go—pleasures, companions, self-indulgence, worldly position, anything and everything that would endanger my salvation.
III.—“Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”—Matth. xxv.
What a joyous life begins when the Gates of their Home close behind the children of God! Without, across the gulf, crouches the deadly foe who pursued them with unrelenting hate up to the moment of death. He is chained. He is conquered. He will never trouble them more. No more temptation or fear. No more evil tendencies. No more conflict without or within. The former things are passed away. They have fought the good fight. The day of triumph and reward is come.
Into what a glorious company we are admitted! See the meetings! Hear the congratulations! The Angels who have never known the taint of sin, are welcoming with brotherly affection those who have washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb, and who are now their companions, their worthy companions, for eternity. How wondrously the gifts of immortality, agility, subtlety, brightness, have transfigured “the body of our lowliness”! Are these the same bodies in which our salvation was laboriously worked out, which were such a clog to us on earth? The transformation of the crawling caterpillar into the gorgeous butterfly, of the bare wintry landscape into the glories of summer foliage and flower, is a poor figure of the change the Resurrection has wrought in the bodies of the saints. Of indescribable and infinitely varied loveliness, I see they are all conformed to their Prototype, the Risen Body of Christ. I understand now what He meant when He said: “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day” (John 6). Oh why did I not think oftener in my Communions of that pledge of eternal life which He gave me in giving me Himself!
But the change in the soul is more wondrous still. All its powers are renovated, perfected, satisfied. Whatever can give happiness in the remembrance of the past, in looking back on our lives, in the recollection of what God has done for us, and of what we have done for Him, is present to the memory without effort, as a delicious fount of joy. Whatever would overcloud the soul’s happiness even for an instant, is banished from its remembrance for ever. All darkness and dulness in the understanding has vanished like a cloud before the sun. We see our God. We are face to face with the Eternal Truth. We know even as we are known. The pleasure that comes from the full development of the noblest faculty of our soul and its employment on the Infinite God, is indescribable. Our minds are keen, eager, strong. And they penetrate the deep things of God with an ever-growing wonder and delight.
And the will—-what a change there! No more sluggishness, no more coldness, no more distraction. To look on God is to be drawn to Him with all the soul’s vehemence and power of love. Every affection centres in Him with whom we have but one will, in the calm thrilling enjoyment of whom we are at rest. Oh that rest in the Bosom of God; that peace, that security in the possession of Him whom we love with every fibre of our being, of Him who made us for Himself, from whom nothing can ever separate us! Is not this untiring energy and activity of all our powers, this tranquil repose and contentment of all—Life indeed! How poor compared with Life Eternal was that existence we called life awhile ago!
God is my Father, and He makes me feel I am in very truth His child. He makes me welcome to all the delights of my Home. “Take all, child. See, hear, enjoy all without fear. The days of restraint are past. All is for you. The more you enjoy what I have prepared for you from eternity, the more you will please and glorify Me.” How can I help enjoying where all is perfect and delightful beyond anything I could have conceived. All that can charm the senses is here. The sounds, the sights, the fragrant scents of my Home, how sweet they are! On every side songs of praise are rising to the Throne of God. And in the ravishing harmony I distinguish the dear, familiar voices silenced so long ago on earth, and, as it seemed, for ever.
How miserable would the most gorgeous pageants of earth appear beside the grand sights of Heaven! These thousands of thousands of blessed spirits, These countless hosts of saints. What joy to carry on in eternity the friendship with them begun on earth. To meet our Patron Saints, not now as Patrons, but as dear brothers and sisters in our Father’s House, all rejoicing in our happiness, all so glad we are come. And the marvellous charity everywhere! Not one in this vast multitude but breaks forth into fresh praise of God for my company, and calls on me to join my voice with theirs and take up my part in the unending songs of jubilee. But if the sight of all the blessed brings such joy, what is it to meet my Angel Guardian, so happy at the success of his long labour of love, so delighted in my delight! O dear Angel, can you forgive and forget my forgetfulness and waywardness in the past? What happiness to meet in a blessed eternity those who were bound to me by special ties on earth; to find the old home reconstructed in the great Home where all shall be reunited in everlasting joy before the Face of our Father who is in Heaven!
One of the surprises of Heaven is to feel so completely at ease in the midst of such magnificent sanctity. I keep forgetting that I am no more what I was; that the glorious change I see in others, they see with delight in me. I am worthy—oh, can it be really true! of the companionship of Angels and saints. And here are none of earth’s formalities and constraints in treating with those in loftier stations than ourselves. Though in our Father’s House there are many mansions, we are free to go in and out as we will, welcome everywhere, everywhere the objects of an overflowing affection that has utterly taken me by surprise. Wherever we go we are at Home. And the higher we ascend the more easy of access we find our blessed companions.
I kneel at Mary’s feet. I feel her hand resting on my shoulder. I look into her face and meet her smile, and know my Mother understands all I would say. At last I can love and thank her as she deserves.
Higher still. I fall at the feet of Jesus. I adore Him with all the intensity of worship, love, and gratitude of which I am capable now. He raises me with tender words, and I dare to lift my eyes and look upon Him. “This is He who became incarnate for me, who died for me; whom at prayer, and in the silence of the night, and as I gazed upon the white Host in the monstrance I have tried to picture to myself. For the first time I see the Human Face of Jesus. His eyes look down into mine. What that first glance of His has said! It has told me how dear I am to Him, how happy He is to have me safe with Him at last. He lays His wounded Hands upon my head. He speaks to me. I hear the tones of the Voice that thrilled to their depths the souls of Mary, and Joseph, and Peter, and Magdalen, and John. What are all the songs of Heaven compared with the music of that Voice! How sweet He is, how gracious, how attractive! Who would think that Infinite Majesty could be so tender? That He who knows me through and through, knows how I have served Him, how miserably I have corresponded with His grace, could treat me like this! He thanks me for every little thing I have ever done for Him, things I had forgotten, things that seem beneath His notice. I look up at Him through such happy tears. “Lord, dost Thou thank me? Oh if the past years were to come over again, there should be a difference in my service and in my love! Why was not all my service love of Thee!”